Catholic schools vow to keep the faith when selecting pupils

Share via

The Catholic Church says it will not turn away Catholic childrenJames Glossop for The Times

Joanna Sugden

Last updated at 12:01AM, April 23 2011

Roman Catholic schools have pledged to defend their right to select pupils on the basis of faith after secularists and teaching unions welcomed moves by the Church of England to limit the practice of selecting on religious grounds.

The Catholic Education Service, which represents about a third of the faith schools in England, said it would “robustly fight” any attempts to introduce quotas for non-Catholic pupils.

Dr Oona Stannard, their chief executive, dismissed calls by the Church of England’s board of education to end the bias towards religious children as “nonsense”. “I don’t foresee a time where our bishops would